Senior Leadership Advisor

ABOUT EXCEPTIONAL LEADERSHIP

Exceptional Leadership Technology (ELT) advises investors, boards and senior executives on consequential leadership decisions. We combine psychometric evidence, behavioural insight and experienced judgement to understand individual leaders, the critical relationships between them, and how executive teams and boards work together.

We are a small, senior firm. We have grown profitably without outside investment and are now building a premium boutique designed to grow well beyond its founders. Our clients include PE investors and the boards and executive teams of investor-backed and listed companies.

THE MISSION

You will be one of our earliest senior advisers. You will own engagements from brief to review, originate and grow accounts, and bring the psychometric depth that lets us judge which tools and methods to trust. You will help turn what we learn into methods and propositions the firm can deliver consistently, without depending on any one person. And you will have a hand in the whole business: the brand, the offer, the hiring and the plan.

WHO WE ARE SEEKING

You are already doing excellent work in our field with a strong brand behind you; trusted with senior clients, you are fluent in psychometrics and helping to win and grow accounts.

What you want next is different: you want to be part of building a new, premium brand in this space. You want exposure and contribution to a whole business; to lead client relationships end to end; to be part of a premium brand with a clear plan, a visible route to Principal and a stake in the outcome.

• You want to originate. You build relationships with prospects, clients and partners, understand the business problem before recommending anything, and you have already turned conversations into scoped, priced work, with or without your name on the sale.
• You deliver sensitive findings with care and authority. Executives, chairs and investors trust your judgement because it is evidenced, nuanced and plainly expressed.
• You are rigorous about evidence. You know what the instruments can and cannot support, and you say so.
• You share expertise, relationships and credit, review colleagues’ work and accept the same scrutiny of your own.
• You use AI as a working tool already where appropriate, for research, preparation, synthesis and drafting, and you review its output critically.

RESPONSIBILITIES AND EXPECTATIONS

• Lead client engagements. Own engagements from briefing and scope through delivery, follow-up and review. Establish the client’s decision or desired outcome, agree success measures and manage scope, fees, resources and deadlines. Interpret the full Hogan Assessment suite and other psychometrics alongside interviews, stakeholder evidence and business context. Lead debriefs, coaching, critical relationship work, executive and board workshops, and continuing advisory relationships.
• Win and shape work. Originate opportunities and develop existing accounts. Lead discovery, proposals and pitches, defining outcomes, deliverables, fees and effort within agreed commercial authority. Keep an accurate pipeline, follow up consistently, support renewals and expansion, and contribute content, events and thought leadership under the ELT brand.
• Bring psychometric and advisory expertise. Help us judge which tools and methods are appropriate, what their evidence supports and where their limits lie. Translate scientific knowledge into practical advice and strengthen our assessment, interpretation and development methods, including our understanding of critical leadership relationships. Review colleagues’ work through the agreed peer review process.
• Develop and commercialise propositions. Identify client problems that could be addressed through repeatable offers, diagnostics or IP. Build the evidence and commercial case, run proportionate pilots, and be willing to simplify, reshape, defer or stop an idea when the evidence requires it. Document the method and train colleagues so the firm can deliver it consistently.
• Contribute to the wider business. Contribute to strategy and take responsibility for agreed actions. Capture learning in our shared knowledge resources.

EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

Essential

• An impressive record as a leadership advisor, executive assessor or consultant at a well-regarded firm in our industry: consistently well rated, trusted with senior client work, and carrying the method discipline and quality standards that come with it.
• Experience advising PE investors or investor-backed leadership teams.
• Credibility with boards, investors and C-suite leaders, with strong interviewing, coaching and facilitation skills and the ability to turn complex evidence into practical recommendations.
• Evidence of winning, growing or shaping client work, and of delivering it, with sound judgement about pricing, scope, effort and commercial return.
• Hogan Assessment accreditation and substantial experience applying this and other psychometrics to senior appointment, succession and development decisions, with a broad understanding of the psychometric landscape.
• Clear writing, excellent attention to detail and reliable execution across several priorities. Current, hands-on use of AI tools in your own work.
• An appetite to build a small firm: to contribute beyond your own engagements and share expertise, relationships and credit.

Desirable

• Chartered Occupational or Organisational Psychologist
• A record of developing a repeatable offer, diagnostic or piece of IP that others went on to deliver

HOW WE WILL MEASURE SUCCESS

Before appointment we will agree your first-year target, how contribution is attributed, the expected work mix and any product or firm-wide responsibilities. We will also share our strategy and show you how we work. The measures are likely to include:

• Commercial contribution. The plan sets a £1m annual sales target at Senior Leadership Advisor level, across accounts you help develop and serve, including shared delivery. It is not a requirement to bill £1m personally and we expect a first-year ramp-up period.
• Origination. A pipeline that is accurate, current and followed up.
• Client trust and retention. Engagements delivered to scope, deadline and agreed fee, and at least half of the accounts you lead returning or expanding within 18 months.
• Methods and propositions. At least one documented improvement to our methods, or one proposition pilot with client evidence, in year one. Product contribution is assessed through agreed milestones and evidence of client value and commercial progress.
• The firm. Your agreed firm-wide responsibility delivered to its defined outputs, and client records, notes and pipeline kept current in our systems.

WHAT WE OFFER

• A base salary of £90,000 to £115,000 FTE DOE, plus 5% employer pension.
• We plan to establish an EMI share option scheme through which early senior hires participate in the value they help create, with grants and vesting reflecting agreed business and individual performance, exercisable at a qualifying liquidity event such as a sale of the firm.
• Commission for your first twelve months on agreed qualifying work directly attributable to client relationships or contacts you established before joining.
• 25 days’ annual leave plus UK bank holidays.
• Full time or 4 days per week.
• Remote-first, based within the UK. (Client work is delivered remotely and in person; expect limited travel in the UK and sometimes overseas for offsites and key meetings.)
• Significant investment in internal tooling and AI support so your time goes on judgement and relationships, not production.

NB: Our work involves personal data, including psychometric results. Appointment is subject to right-to-work checks, references and background checks consistent with our ISO 27001 and SOC 2 commitments. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and will make reasonable adjustments throughout the process.

HOW TO APPLY

Send a CV and a short note (no cover letter needed) to tzuki@exceptionalleadership.co.uk answering the following question: We’re interested not just in whether you could do this role, but why it makes sense for you now. Looking at the career you’ve built so far and the chapter you want next, what is it about this role and our business that attracts you?